
and reviews are gonna be like, 'i like the childhood scenes so much it's bittersweet, but why do the adult actors suck lmao'
honestly i can only picture this being satisfying with 2 conclusions: it airs to high acclaim, then MC's flashback scenes end, ratings immediately plummet while exposing the talentless leads and they gotta beg his agency to have him come back to the set or promote it
OR midway through production this all comes out and the two leads get kicked out for being messy af & replaced w/decent actors before the drama airs

my toxic trait is imagining rashta learns her lesson and saves her kid before running away to establish her independence far from any royal drama. and somehow fate still tries to set up a meetcute between her and sovieshu but this time she fucks him up and tries to actually ally with navier and express her idolization of her in a healthier manner. maybe some GL down the line. who said that?
(edit: fun fact, people with piss poor reading comprehension will never read below this line)
specifically fanfic because we all know narrative-wise it would be impossible and 99% says if given the chance to regress, rashta would be more of a menace than she had been.
this ending tugged at heartstrings and made us contemplate her upbringing, yes, but it doesn't erase the fact that rashta only ever starts to regret anything when her neck is on the line. given a little leeway, she bounces right back to abusing others with little to no character development. even in her last moments, she gives in to paranoia and stabs the maid who turns a blind eye to her escape. it's the same shit you see people in high-stress jobs do to customer service workers. are they pitiful in their predicament? sure. but does it give them an excuse to take out their trauma and frustration on someone else more defenseless than them? nah.

his situation is one where you're only fucked if you fuck yourself over. he literally could've went, "bye, i'm out" the minute he regressed. given his knowledge of not just future events but modern society as well, he could've been his own powerhouse and pursued FL on his own terms.
FL wouldn't hate him if he was honest from the start, even before regression. and after regression he could've atoned properly by helping her and letting her be happy, but he continues to antagonize her and the people she clearly cares about.
sure, for pre-regression jiho, i have a smidge of sympathy for. he was literally ripped apart from everyone and everything he knew, immediately shackled down and manipulated in power struggles he had no inkling of, and forced to continuously risk his life for aristocrats in an unfamiliar kingdom that actively ostracized him and looked down on him as an uncultured savage as he faced demons and dragons in the frontline. his sins towards the FL in the prev timeline were unforgivable, but ultimately his choices were still deeply rooted in his desperate struggle to survive.
but THIS jiho????
mf'er could've chosen a million different things after regression that would have benefited both him and his goals better, but he continues to pick dumb after dumb crap because he wanted a shortcut and to remove any autonomy from FL. and now he's BigMad about the situation he landed himself in like, homie be forreal.

(spoiler)
he didn't change his mind, sadly. he actually was fully in on the plan to abandon her.
the question in the series is if the sister and father were lying about jiho casting her away and replacing her with her sister... FL (and the readers) still had the tiniest bit of hope that it was a misunderstanding and both jiho and FL were tricked in the past timeline...
(more spoilers)
BUT NOPE. jiho was offered the plan to divorce her and he 100% agreed because even during their marriage, they both continued to struggle with noble society. it benefited him to marry the sister, who had a more favorable impression and a stronger sway with the nobles compared to FL. what he didn't anticipate however is the Fl would choose to end her life. he somehow had the delusion that FL would probably feel hurt but then eventually meekly accept her fate. once he got more status/power, he can then try to compensate FL's pain.
except the FL self-exited which kinda traumatized jiho. it made him go a little obsessed & insane, enough for him to finally find a way to turn back time and he made it so that FL kept her memories to finally break free of her father.
and you know what? it would have been great if he stopped there. but unfortunately jiho began to recall his past memories too while in the battlefield and once he saw FL alive and well, he couldn't help it. his hubris and greed came back full force, and he began to obsess over how only HE can truly give the FL a happy life, that this time for sure against all odds he will (whether she liked it or not

Fr and considering that Jiho even knows how to read the stars and know agriculture and armory, isn't that mean he's actually kinda smart? Or is Jiho someone who's just book smart but actually dumb in real life situations? Like boy is literally a walking Wikipedia at this point lol
IDK but with his modern mind and OP physical strength plus having the regressor cheat, I think he can at least think any other better way to live in this new world right? But NO he decided to be a full pledge loser

i don't give a shit if we find out some reason behind it later or whatever issue the adult leads may have with each other, but these adult actors are TRASH and unprofessional af.
and given that MC was a high-profile actor that got cast as a main antagonist in an international film + got international awards and even has pretty strong backings in the industry like... shouldn't he have a better PR and managerial team than this when dealing with set ostracization/ harassment? bruh are they gonna make him resolve this on his own again like before lol
how neglectful and hypocritical of a parent do you have to be to make a slave trader look marginally more ok in comparison?